With a break in the weather, the snow is starting to melt. I was able to dig into the compost pile and get a bunch inside to warm up. Then I made soil blocks for the first kale and cabbage starts. I only had a 2 inch blocker at the time, which is overkill. I have a micro 20 blocker (3/4 size squares) and a 1.5 inch blocker now which will be more efficient use of space. A few pictures below from Saturday. Showing the Jang JP-1 seeder and the bed after seeding carrots. And the purple glowing corner. I may have to get more lights. I’m hoping they will be enough until its warm enough to keep seedlings outside in the tunnels.
Today the sun came out and we go our personal cloud chamber going.
The last few years here the winters have been mild. This year is still relatively mild. But we’ve gotten more snow than I’ve seen in quite a while. Anecdotally, it feels like the last several winters we’ve gotten snow, then it melts immediately.
But now my crop plan wants me to plant carrots in the first beds in the caterpillar tunnel, and they are frozen solid. Until the lows get back near the freezing point, the soil in there won’t be soft enough to plant in. A plan is just a plan, however. And I anticipated this delay, so everything was planned out two weeks earller than I realistically expected to be able to plant. Now I wait for a thaw in February.
My seed order has already arrived, hope I got it right. That ties into my crop planning which will be a separate post. But the seeds were the first in a series of larger purchases for the spring. The recent totals are below. I am showing them because a lot of material on market gardening doesn’t go full into the details of various expenses to paint a realistic picture. Of course, the budget differs by operation.
And this does not include last years spending for the first caterpillar tunnel and some other odds and ends. At this point, I’m close to what I expected. Remaining are a few irrigation supplies, the farm stand supplies, the walk-in cooler build, and more compost. An unexpected addition was the Jang seeder. I was considering it for a long time and hoped to get away with my Earthway for the first half of the summer. However, a major crop in my plan are carrots.
The Earthway has issues with spacing on carrots. Last year I got plenty of carrots for a home garden. In the commercial context I need more consistency and reliability in spacing. And I should waste less seed this way.
I was able to half my drip irrigation budget. Originally I planned to do four lines per 25ft bed in the tunnels. Totalling 2400 ft of drip line and a couple hundred fittings leading to a $850 cost. Then I realized I can use overhead for the initial plantings. After that the only thing in the tunnels are tomatoes and cucurbits making up 2 rows per bed. So I only need 600ft of drip line and A LOT less fittings. A great savings. For overhead I can use mini-wobbler sprinklers which are super cheap along with the standard poly pipe irrigation line.
Today it was 40 degrees before it drops again down to a high of 22. So I thought I’d try getting some of the compost taking up the drive way out. Great looking leaf humus from CYC Mulch in Mantua.
With the current garden trailer, I had to shovel it in then shovel it out. Because I’m an idiot. That took 30 minutes and barely covered 1/6th of one tunnel. Below you can see the initial bed. Its not covered enough but I wanted to weigh the paper down. The paper is kraft paper from staples. Enough to kill the weeds, I hope. Then degrade fast enough for root vegetables. My initial plan was cardboard. However, gathering that much cardboard and hoping it degraded by planting time was not feasible.
I need a wheelbarrow really. Shoveling twice was too much work. And I had to wade through a few inches of mud because this half of the tunnel isn’t draining for some reason. So I’m looking at Gorilla Carts at lowes for a tow behind/wheelbarrow hybrid option I can use to dump right into the beds. Otherwise, I don’t see how this would all get done on time.
The caterpillar tunnels I have purchased have less than stellar velcro straps for holding up the plastic sides. They were very thin and ultimately I have not used them at all, because the velcro will inevitably degrade with exposure. Especially from the mud.
Instead, I just use a bunch of spring clamps that wrap the rope and the anchor bow together, they have rubberized covers to avoid poking through the plastic, too. The clamps are cheap ones from Amazon. I might look into adding some more rubber/poly on them for cut protection. I am nto sure how well this will work when it gets hot out and I have to put the plastic up way higher, but we’ll see.
